Why do I need co-founders and how do I choose the right ones?

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This subject has been sort of widely written about. There is a few companies that have done some research showing that companies with 2 co-founders are generally the ones that end up succeeding versus with one or more than 3. I would say the optimal number is 2 to 3. I think it’s good to have co-founders because when you’re alone dealing with the problem you tend to be much more closed whereas if you have someone that you believe in, that you trust, that you value. You can bounce ideas off of each other. I think it’s really important, especially in high-growth startups where things change very fast and you’ve got to react very quickly.

The other thing is that you often don’t want to be drinking your own Kool-Aid, you want someone to check you and say or be the contrarian to what you believe in. So that you’re able to think more clearly about the path you’re on. The third, I would say that a lot of founders get very attached to the product, so sometimes it’s good to have a co-founder that’s not quite as attached, that is dealing with other different things within the company. You deal with product, technology and marketing and your other co-founder deals with operations, HR, finance, sales, and marketing or whatever it may be. You can then talk more objectively about what one arm is doing that’s affecting the other arm and have a more meaningful conversation and just having two different perspectives really helps.